IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v30y2009i2p81-96.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Willingness to Pay for Renewable Energy Sources: The Case of Italy with Socio-demographic Determinants

Author

Listed:
  • Carlo Andrea Bollino

Abstract

According to the “Renewable Sources†EU Directive 2001/77/CE, the Italian Government goal is to attain the share of 22% in RES electricity production in 2010. In such context it becomes crucial to explore the existence of consumer’s Willingness to Pay (WTP) in order to use renewable energy in the electricity production. This study is based on a national survey with 1601 interviews made, in Italy, in November 2006. My aim is twofold. Firstly, I wish to assess the consumer’s WTP which is the basis for market sustainability of such energy policy goal and, secondly, I evaluate the share of the necessary public support to RES policy which is covered by the aggregate WTP of Italians. This is an implicit assessment of the plausibility/acceptance of the announced target policy. In my survey framework I obtain the consumer’s WTP with two different approaches and to this end the sample has been divided in two parts. In the first sub-sample I propose the full price vector with a downward elicitation format while in the second sub-sample I use the same price vector with an upward elicitation format. In this paper I focus on the different uncertainty degree that affects respondent’s choices. I take care econometrically of this issue using an individual stochastic valuation approach and a referendum approach. I obtain for most of the estimated models that estimates of WTP are in agreement with other international results. The aggregate WTP for RES in Italy, however, is (still) not enough to attain the Italian Government goal in 2010.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlo Andrea Bollino, 2009. "The Willingness to Pay for Renewable Energy Sources: The Case of Italy with Socio-demographic Determinants," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(2), pages 81-96, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:30:y:2009:i:2:p:81-96
    DOI: 10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-No2-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-No2-4
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/ISSN0195-6574-EJ-Vol30-No2-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian A. Vossler & Robert G. Ethier & Gregory L. Poe & Michael P. Welsh, 2003. "Payment Certainty in Discrete Choice Contingent Valuation Responses: Results from a Field Validity Test," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(4), pages 886-902, April.
    2. Christian A. Vossler & Robert G. Ethier & Gregory L. Poe & Michael P. Welsh, 2003. "Payment Certainty in Discrete Choice Contingent Valuation Responses: Results from a Field Validity Test," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(4), pages 886-902, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alsulami, Abdulkarim & Fairbrass, Jenny & Botelho, Tiago & Assadinia, Shahin, 2024. "Renewable energy and innovation in Saudi Arabia: An exploration of factors affecting consumers' intention to adopt Solar PV," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moore, Rebecca & Bishop, Richard C. & Provencher, Bill & Champ, Patricia A., 2009. "Accounting for Respondent Uncertainty to Improve Willingness-to-Pay Estimates," Staff Papers 92233, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    2. Nikita Lyssenko & Roberto Mart󹑺-Espiñeira, 2012. "Respondent uncertainty in contingent valuation: the case of whale conservation in Newfoundland and Labrador," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(15), pages 1911-1930, May.
    3. Norwood, F. Bailey, 2005. "Can Calibration Reconcile Stated and Observed Preferences?," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 37(1), pages 1-10, April.
    4. Karen Blumenschein & GlennC. Blomquist & Magnus Johannesson & Nancy Horn & Patricia Freeman, 2008. "Eliciting Willingness to Pay Without Bias: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 114-137, January.
    5. Sharma, Sadikshya & Kreye, Melissa M., 2022. "Social value of bird conservation on private forest lands in Pennsylvania, USA," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    6. O. Ashton Morgan & John C. Whitehead, 2018. "Willingness to Pay for Soccer Player Development in the United States," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(2), pages 279-296, February.
    7. Bills, Nelson L. & Poe, Gregory L. & Wright, Peter, 2003. "Using Voluntary Approaches to Reduce Environmental Damages: Evidence from a Survey of New York Dairy Farms," Japanese Journal of Agricultural Economics (formerly Japanese Journal of Rural Economics), Agricultural Economics Society of Japan (AESJ), vol. 5, pages 1-16.
    8. Sund, Björn, 2009. "Certainty calibration in contingent valuation - exploring the within-difference between dichotomous choice and open-ended answers as a certainty measure," Working Papers 2009:1, Örebro University, School of Business.
    9. Vossler, Christian A., 2003. "Multiple bounded discrete choice contingent valuation: parametric and nonparametric welfare estimation and a comparison to the payment card," MPRA Paper 38867, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Cristeche, Estela & Tello, Diego & de Prada, Jorge & Brescia, Victor, 2015. "Contigent Valuation with Multiple Bounded Format and Uncertainty Response of a Rural Land Zoning Program in the South of Cordoba Province, Argentina," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211551, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Steven B. Caudill & Peter A. Groothuis & John C. Whitehead, 2006. "Testing for Hypothetical Bias in Contingent Valuation Using a Latent Choice Multinomial Logit Model," Working Papers 06-09, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    12. Regmi, Arun & Kreye, Melissa M. & Kreye, Jesse K., 2023. "Forest landowner demand for prescribed fire as an ecological management tool in Pennsylvania, USA," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    13. Jerrod Penn & Wuyang Hu, 2023. "Adjusting and Calibrating Elicited Values Based on Follow-up Certainty Questions: A Meta-analysis," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(4), pages 919-946, April.
    14. Milad Haghani & Michiel C. J. Bliemer & John M. Rose & Harmen Oppewal & Emily Lancsar, 2021. "Hypothetical bias in stated choice experiments: Part II. Macro-scale analysis of literature and effectiveness of bias mitigation methods," Papers 2102.02945, arXiv.org.
    15. Christian Vossler & Michael McKee, 2006. "Induced-Value Tests of Contingent Valuation Elicitation Mechanisms," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 35(2), pages 137-168, October.
    16. Trudeau, Jennifer M. & Alicea-Planas, Jessica & Vásquez, William F., 2020. "The value of COVID-19 tests in Latin America," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    17. Bethany Cooper & Michael Burton & Lin Crase, 2019. "Willingness to Pay to Avoid Water Restrictions in Australia Under a Changing Climate," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(3), pages 823-847, March.
    18. Svedsater, Henrik, 2007. "Ambivalent statements in contingent valuation studies: inclusive response formats and giving respondents time to think," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 51(1), pages 1-17.
    19. Groothuis, Peter A. & Cockerill, Kristan & Mohr, Tanga McDaniel, 2015. "Water does not flow up hill: determinants of willingness to pay for water conservation measures in the mountains of western North Carolina," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 88-95.
    20. Simona Bigerna & Carlo Andrea Bollino & Paolo Polinori, 2014. "The Question of Sustainability of Green Electricity Policy Intervention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(8), pages 1-23, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:30:y:2009:i:2:p:81-96. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.